User:Oceanflynn/sandbox/Noncompete clause

Noncompete clause, Non-compete clause, noncompete agreement, is a legally binding clause written into employment contracts designed to prevent employees from leaving an employer for a competitor. These contracts have long been routine among senior executives. In the last fifteen years their use rapidly spread "across the labor landscape" including "blue collar workers" and making it more difficult for Americans to negotiate a raise. According to a By 2013 The Wall Street Journal article, since c. 2003 there was a 60% increase in the number of noncompete clause litigation cases.

History
By 2013, more employers were "requiring their new workers" to sign "noncompete" agreements" claiming that it was "needed to prevent insiders from taking trade secrets, business relationships or customer date to their competitors".

Prior to the early 2000s, noncompete clauses were mainly used for top executives, but as the practice spread it made it difficult for American workers to even get a raise.

Cases
In 2002, when Robin Sommers, who had worked for Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company since 1986, left the company after its sale to R.J. Reynolds, Sommers signed a noncompete agreement. In 1981 subscription data specialist Sommers had financed experimental tobacco crops for the tobacco company's founder and CEO, Bill Drake. With Sommers in place, the tobacco company made $88,000 in sales.

In March 1996 Naveen Jain founded Infospace with six employees after he left Microsoft. When Jain founded Intelius in 2003, InfoSpace sued Jain for allegedly violating noncompete agreements.

In October 2012 Jon Hirschtick, a CAD software developer, who founded SolidWorks, a CAD and CAE system used by Microsoft Windows, to found Onshape, originally called Belmont Technology. Hisrschtick was joined by other members of the "original SolidWorks team".

In July 2016, Panera Bread filed a lawsuit against Papa John's Pizza, one of the largest take-out and pizza delivery restaurant chain in the United States. Papa John's was accused of "stealing digital trade secrets and proprietary data management strategies by hiring Michael Nettles, a former Panera executive who was in charge of the chain's corporate digital technologies deployment". In August, a Federal judge issued a restraining order, preventing Nettles from reporting to work at Papa John's while the case was active. In December 2016, Panera dropped the noncompete suit.

In the November 26, 2012 List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Roberts Court case Nitro-Lift Technologies, LLC v. Howard Chief Justice John Roberts heard a number of the justices ruled that the Oklahoma Supreme Court was wrong in preventing arbitration of a dispute over the scope of  noncompete agreements in employment contracts.

Law firms
Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP (Honigman), a law firm that ranked 144th on The American Lawyer's 2016 AmLaw 200 rankings includes teams of attorneys that concentrate on Noncompete Agreements and Trade Secrets.